Saturday, March 03, 2007

My recent switch to Mac has so far been nothing but awesome. Generally, Macs are just better at everything. But, there is one application that I miss from the Windows world: a wallpaper changer that uses photos from Flickr. John's Background Switcher did exactly what I wanted, but that only exists on windows.

There is photocast trick over on Mac OS X Hints, but that has the limitation of only using recent photos out of a Flickr stream. I would really like to pull random photos out of my Flickr photostream, just like John's Background Switcher does. I'd also like to have some specific Flickr interaction, like jumping to the displayed photo, or showing the most interesting photos.

Unfortunately, I just can't find a good application on the Mac to do this. Thus, my only solution is to write one! I think that this should be a relatively simple application when it's done; however, discovering the most elegant way to put this together will be a small adventure. It should be fun and a good way to explore some of the principles of Mac development.

We'll all just have to see how this develops.

To keep the information about this project separate from the miscellaneous clutter of this blog, I've started a new blog specifically to journal my progress. You can visit this project journal at http://flickrdesktop.blogspot.com.

Friday, March 02, 2007

It's set. I'll be moving to California soon for a short contract at UC Davis to do a bit of research on the hydrocarbon distribution in peach trees. I'll be there March through July. Davis is right next to Sacramento, or about an hour from San Francisco (aside from certain bars, it's a fun town), or a bit less time from the Napa Valley (no, i won't refuse the merlot). It's unfortunately a bit too far from San Jose (I would have loved to go see the Sharks-Flames game on April 5th at the Shark Tank), and it's definitely too far from San Diego (I love the zoo there). It's also not far enough from LosAngeles; but, nothing is really far enough from LosAngeles. It should be fun!